Which kind of gardener are you?
Garden Buddy is not a one size fits all site. Someone with a quarter acre out the back and someone with four pots on a third floor balcony are solving different problems, and telling them the same thing helps neither.
So tell me which one you are. It takes one click, I will remember it, and the site will point you at the parts that actually apply to you.
You told me . Pick a different one below whenever you like, or .
Your patch, start to finish
Space is rarely what limits you. Timing, spacing and pests are.
- 1 Set up your patch Size it, and tell me which way it faces.
- 2 See what suits this month Sown at the wrong time, a good seed still fails.
- 3 Read the guide for your zone Varieties, spacing and the challenges to expect.
- 4 Watch for pests early What is about locally, before it reaches you.
- 5 Log the harvest Every kilo, priced against the supermarket.
A balcony is a different problem
You are rationing three things a ground gardener never thinks about: light, floor space and weight.
- 1 Set up your balcony Which way it faces and how deep it is. That is the whole ballgame.
- 2 Find out what your light allows 23 of the 107 crops I hold data for still crop in three hours or less.
- 3 Get the pot right Depth and litres per crop, plus what it weighs once watered.
- 4 Start with leaves and herbs They forgive low light. Fruiting crops do not.
- 5 Swap for what you cannot grow Your herbs for their tomatoes.
Growing with other people
The trick is not growing more. It is not all growing the same thing in the same week.
- 1 Pick your own space first Ground or balcony. Everything else builds on it.
- 2 Start or join a group A street, a club, or a community garden.
- 3 Check everyone is in one climate zone So a planting calendar means the same thing to all of you.
- 4 Split the crops between you Nobody needs six lettuces in the same week.
- 5 Swap the results Surplus in, shortfall out.
Not sure, or a bit of both?
Plenty of people are. Pick whichever you spend the most time on and change it later, nothing is locked in.
You have a patch and a balcony. Start with the one you actually walk out to most days. You can set the other one up afterwards.
You are in a community garden but also grow at home. Pick “I grow with other people”. It sets your own space up first anyway, then adds the group side on top.
You have not started yet. Have a look at the demo garden first. It is a real garden with real numbers, and it costs nothing to poke around in.
What happens with your answer
It sets your growing space to ground level or balcony, which is what the planting advice, the sun model and the pot sizing all read from. If you choose the community option, the steps you get sent through include Grow Together, where you either start a group or accept an invitation to one. There is no public list of groups to browse. Somebody has to invite you, and that is on purpose.
If you do not have an account yet the choice is kept in your browser, and it follows you into your account when you make one. Nothing else is stored, and you can change it any time from this page or from My Garden.